Those who have been paying attention to the latest editions of the Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival (BIEFF) have certainly taken note of Yann Gonzales and Bertrand Mandico. The two have been fixtures of the festival circuit for the past decade, and the fact that they've recently been recognized by the Cannes Film Festival and by Cahiers du Cinéma, two of the bedrocks of a cinema industry that is constantly and obsessively searching for new enfants terribles, has certainly placed them in a somewhat comfier, warmer spot within its milieu. Warm, yet not hot. Certainly not the right temperature that would make their latest films, Les garçons sauvages (Mandico) and Knife + Heart (Un couteau dans le coeur, Gonzalez), suitable for an opening or closing gala screening at BIEFF. To the festival’s credit, the films can easily be accused of being ascetic, the products of a hardcore cinephilia that wrangles with a playful queer sensibility, which is something that is much easier to pull off in a short film than a feature.

Călin Boto

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Film curator, writer and editor, member of the selection committees of BIEFF and Woche der Kritik, FIPRESCI member and alumnus of the film criticism workshops organized by the Sarajevo, Warsaw and Locarno film festivals. Teaches a course on film criticism and analysis at UNATC. He has curated programs for Cinemateca Română, Short Waves, V-F-X Ljubljana, Trieste Film Festival, as well as the Bucharest retrospective of Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour in 2024 and 2025.

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